Traditional lighting techniques for photography are still in wide use. However, traditional techniques attempt to stage lighting and capture in one or two images. These techniques require large lights, and an extreme amount of timing and coordination; e.g., turning lights on and off during several seconds of exposure.
World Patent WO1992006557-A1 discloses color image processing system for preparing a composite image transformation module for performing a plurality of selected image transformations; with composite transform definition including sample values of an input/output relation of a composite image transformation which is equivalent to the image transformation(s) selected by the user. A custom transform definition can be prepared in accordance with a user's instructions and added to the plurality of transform definitions stored by the storage device. The transform controller operates in real time, implementing the user's selections sufficiently quickly to allow the user to interact with the image processing system until a desired array of modified pixel values are obtained.
European Patent EP1061407-B1 discloses a camera used to captures images of different portions of the document. The images captured from adjacent or overlapping fields of view can be joined into a composite image of the adjacent or overlapping fields.
Bischel, Analyzing a Scene's Picture Set under Varying Lighting, COMPUTER VISION AND IMAGE UNDERSTANDING, Vol. 71, No. 3, September, pp. 271-280, 1998 ARTICLE NO. IV970627, discloses derivation of a description of the set of all pictures that can be taken from a given scene under varying lighting, where the camera, the scene, and the light sources are static but where each light source can vary arbitrarily in radiance. A lighting invariant recognition algorithm is introduced and tested in a face recognition experiment, which shows that lighting invariant recognition leads to considerably better performance, even if the radiance of the light sources and the lighting directions change.
Clapp (U.S. Pat. No. 4,018,519) discloses a composite photography apparatus. A background image is projected onto an auto-collimating screen along an axis generally normal to the surface of the screen, directing polarized light in a first polarized plane onto a subject in front of the screen. Light reflected from the subject and the screen is transmitted to a camera in a second polarized plane perpendicular to the first polarized plane, which prevents any of the polarized light reflected from the screen in the first polarized plane from reaching the camera.